Hiring Of Garner's Sons Questioned

TAVARES — A Tavares city councilman is questioning the school board's recent decision to approve two of Superintendent Freddie Garner's sons for jobs in a school district summer work program.

Jimmy Conner, in a registered letter to board chairwoman Georgia Phillips, seeks a legal opinion on whether the board violated its nepotism policy by approving the hires.

Phillips said Tuesday that she had consulted the board's law firm before the July 22 meeting and had been told the hires were in order because Garner's sons wouldn't be under his direct supervision. They were hired to work in the maintenance and grounds department.

Board policy forbids close relatives, defined as immediate family members, from working in the same department unless approved by the superintendent and prohibits school district employees from supervising a close relative.

Conner points to another policy that says the superintendent's duties include the responsibility ''to direct and supervise the work of all the schools, offices and employees of the board.''

''Jimmy could have a different interpretation of it,'' Phillips said of Conner, a vocal critic of Garner's handling of the Eustis High School principalship. She said she would ask board attorneys to respond to Conner's letter.

Garner dismissed Conner's letter as ''one man's grudge.'' He said that both board attorneys and the Tallahassee lawyer who is representing him in an unrelated matter had advised him that the appointments were proper. He also noted that public school districts are exempted from the state nepotism law, which supersedes school board policy.

''You're taking a man's word off the street, and I've got a problem with that,'' Garner said. ''We're strictly legal. We've consulted two attorneys. You see, it just doesn't hold water.

''I'm very proud of my sons for getting out and working and trying to earn college money.''

Phillips said it has been common practice for the children of superintendents to work in summer job programs ''for umpteen years.'' Other employees' children also have worked in the program.

''Maybe they can find a technicality that it's wrong,'' she said, ''but it's the way it's always been.''